My colleague in the US, Heather Hopkins recently covered the blaze of publicity around Oprah Winfrey starting to tweet and its immediate impact on Twitter’s US share of visits. In Australia the influences seem to be broader than America’s new 'tweetheart’.

When Vanity Fair published a story earlier this year on a group of all-American, all-white "tweethearts," the real Twitterati took the magazine to task for ignoring a growing force on Twitter: African-Americans.

Thursday night's "Daily Show" began with another thorough take-down of John McCain's stance on Don't Ask Don't Tell, but afterward Jon Stewart moved on to McCain's 2008 Presidential running mate Sarah Palin, who he dubbed "America's Tweetheart."

Palin has taken to Twitter to vent her frustrations with Obama's handling of the latest WikiLeaks document drop, but Stewart believes her outrage is primarily unfounded.

Noun: "a Twitter user who is one's friend or in one's wider social circle"[edit]

"I liked the idea of people who don't really know each other except through short messages getting together and meeting for the first time, putting a face to a name, and also telling people how much I enjoy reading their updates," said Tim Lara, Twitter user @timothydanger. "Meeting new tweeps was nice too. I gained a couple of tweethearts since then and enjoy the banter. (My twitter is never serious)."

There is the local angle - if you are one of the desperate spruikers who interpreted Kim Clijsters' twittering "Happy Australia Day to all my Aussie tweethearts" as an indication her heart beats green and gold, even if her dress was only a half-hearted green.

Noun: "a Twitter user one is infatuated with or involved romantically"[edit]

"They did me a Twitter when I started this book," he said. "I had a load of girls who did the Twitter and I dubbed them my Tweethearts, and my true Tweetheart, my wife, does my Twitter now, because I can't do it."